Minnesota
Giving birth in rural Minnesota? Be prepared for a long drive – Minnesota Reformer
Essentia Health Services recently announced that it plans to end labor and delivery services at its hospital in Fosston, a town of 1,400 people in northwest Minnesota.
The closure of the delivery ward means that mothers in Fosston and surrounding towns will now have to travel 45 minutes west to Crookston or east to Bemidji to find an obstetric unit that delivers babies.
It’s the latest in a longstanding trend of rural hospitals shuttering their obstetrics departments in the face of staffing and other challenges. Twenty years ago, more than 110 hospitals in the state offered birth services, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Today that number stands at 76, with the closures hitting especially hard in communities in the rural northern reaches of the state.
In Grand Marais, on the North Shore, women face a two-hour drive to get to the nearest birthing center in Duluth. Mothers in Ely (pop. 3,200) need to drive an hour to get to Virginia after the local hospital ended delivery services in 2014. Virginia is also the nearest delivery hospital for residents of International Falls, a city on the Canadian border with a population of more than 5,000 people. It’s one hour and 45 minutes away by car.
Minnesotans living on reservations and tribal lands are especially likely to face difficulties in finding a nearby birthing hospital, as the map above shows. Infant mortality rates for Indigenous Minnesotans are more than double what they are for white babies, according to state data, and the maternal mortality rate is nearly 8 times higher.
Chartis, a private health care consulting firm, recently found that Minnesota had the nation’s highest number of rural obstetrics closures from 2011 through 2021, although this is partly because it has more rural hospitals than other states. A March of Dimes report found that 14% of Minnesota moms have to drive a half hour or more to reach a birthing hospital, compared to 10% nationwide.
When rural delivery wards close, “our research has shown increased risks of emergency room births as well as preterm births, especially in the more remote rural communities which are not adjacent to urban areas,” said Katy Kozhimannil, a University of Minnesota health policy professor. “We have also found that rural communities that lose obstetrics are less likely to offer other evidence-based services and supports for families, like childbirth education or lactation support.”
Rural hospitals in Minnesota have often cited staffing challenges as a driver of maternity ward closures. It can be expensive to keep staff and supplies on hand for procedures that happen infrequently.
“For obstetric services the fixed costs of staffing, equipment, and facilities are difficult to cover with volume based revenues when facilities and clinicians have few pregnant patients,” Kozhimanill explained in an opinion published in BMJ last year. “This leads to workforce shortages and unit closures in more remote, less populated areas.”
Essentia Health in Fosston, for instance, only delivered 38 babies in the 12-month period ending in June of 2022, according to state data. The hospitals in the communities of Olivia and Granite Falls saw fewer than 20 deliveries in their most recently reported years. Both have since ceased offering those services.
Kozhimanill also noted that nearly half of American births are financed by Medicaid, which “reimburses at substantially lower rates than private insurers, so facilities and clinicians caring for lower income patients in remote rural areas face exceptional challenges in generating revenue for obstetric services.”
The closure of an obstetrics unit can become part of a self-perpetuating cycle of rural decline. Young families in need of maternal and infant care may decide to move elsewhere, shrinking the local economy and making it harder for the community to fund services for those who remain.
The March of Dimes recommends expanding Medicaid eligibility and coverage as a way to reverse these trends, but Kozhimanill says policymakers should think bigger and consider ambitious investments in community public health.
“Policy solutions need to focus squarely on the structural injustices and systemic failures that have created and reproduced the statistics that alarm us,” she wrote last year. “As the closest place to give birth becomes further and further away for many people, these facts should no longer be surprising.”
Minnesota
Minnesota cannabis store owners lament testing backlog: “It’s getting frustrating for everyone involved”
One of five cannabis testing sites in Minnesota is shutting down, citing exorbitant costs as the reason.
William Drexler is moving product he has around as he waits patiently for more. He says customers who come into Grey Area, on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, are looking for adult-use items, which he says are being held up by a backlog in testing.
“We haven’t had problems with drinks or edibles yet, but for the adult-use products that where we’ve seen the delays, like your pre-rolls, your flowers, we haven’t even gotten pens in yet,” Drexler said.
He says getting cannabis products in his store has been an issue since he got his license to sell them a few months ago.
“I’ve heard pretty much from every vendor that it’s testing that we are waiting on. That’s been the normal thing to hear, and week by week they may say, ‘it’s next week,’ and that can delay into the following week. So at this point I don’t think many of them are giving a date,” he said.
He anticipates getting those products will take even longer now that one of the testing sites is no longer testing.
In a statement, Legends Technical Services said, “under the current regulatory framework, we do not foresee an ability to continue to meet our client expectations in an economically viable manner. “
“We’ve already seen testing delays from the get go, so vendors aren’t really giving us time frames because they are probably hearing different time frames themselves,” Drexler said. “It’s getting frustrating for everyone involved.”
For now, Drexler contacts growers to see how long before his shelves are in full bloom.
“These companies here, it’s the same story kind of from them when we contact them. ‘Hey, we need more product. We’re hoping for new [product] soon, but it’s coming out of testing soon,’” he said.
WCCO has reached out to Minnesota’s Office of Cannabis Management for comment on the backlog.
Minnesota
Jack Leiter’s struggles at home give Minnesota Twins a pitching edge in American League clash
Every year, I feel like I end up locking on certain pitchers and teams and bet them more than others. It almost never is intentional; usually, I find a team or player I like, we win with them consistently, and I ride the horse until it is time to get off. That’s a bit of how I feel with both the Twins and Rangers who battle in this one.
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I have said that the Chicago White Sox are the biggest surprise in all of baseball, but the Minnesota Twins might be willing to make a strong argument about it. This was a year that the Twins were supposed to be garbage and be more likely to trade people away (like they did last year) than they would be looking to make a move for the club. I can’t say it is entirely due to Byron Buxton, one of the names floated in trade rumors last year and in the offseason, but he is having a great campaign and has the Twins just five games below .500.
Joe Ryan of the Minnesota Twins delivers a pitch against the Cleveland Guardians in the first inning at Target Field in Minneapolis, Minn., on June 21, 2022. (David Berding/Getty Images)
One of the other guys that you can attribute the success of this year to is today’s starter, Joe Ryan. If the Twins do decide to take Ryan to the market, he will have many suitors and should bring back a big haul. Ryan has posted a 4-3 record with a 3.17 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP. He has been slightly worse on the road than at home, but it hasn’t been a significant issue. He was great in May, posting a 1.73 ERA, but June has seen him make three starts and allow eight earned runs, including four homers. Rangers hitters have struggled significantly against him, hitting just .143 against him.
The Texas Rangers are still in the mix for the American League West division. Before you say, “Well, yeah, it’s only the middle of June.” I bring this up because they are just two games back of the Mariners, and the Rangers really haven’t played all that well this season. I think there is a lot of potential for this team to add a bat, and he could make a major difference. If they added Buxton, for example, the Rangers might be the favorite to win the division given how everyone else is playing.
Texas Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter delivers a pitch to the Kansas City Royals during the first inning at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, on May 31, 2026. (Jim Cowsert/Imagn Images)
I’m not trying to discuss hypothetical trades, though. The pitching staff might be enough to carry them to a Wild Card or division title anyway. Today’s starter, Jack Leiter, isn’t the best on the roster, but he’s been good. Leiter is 3-6 with a 4.86 ERA and a 1.39 WHIP. At home, he has been okay, going 2-2 with a 4.14 ERA. He has allowed four or more earned runs in seven of his 14 outings. Twins hitters are batting .417 against Leiter in just 12 at-bats, with Buxton going 2-for-2 with a double, a homer and three RBIs.
I think it probably makes sense to play Buxton to get 2+ bases here today. I get that he probably did all of this damage to Leiter in one game, but it is still worth seeing if he can get it done. He is having a good season, and Leiter isn’t a guy who is going to make you nervous very often about throwing zeroes.
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Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins jogs off the field after the fifth inning of the MLB All-Star Game at Truist Park in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 15, 2025. (Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
I also think we probably should play the game overall. I think the Twins are the correct side in this game. There are a lot of times that I’d back the Rangers, as I think they have the better overall team, but in this one, the pitching mismatch is too strong. Give me the Ryan-led Twins, through five, on the moneyline.
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For more sports betting information and plays, follow David on X/Twitter: @futureprez2024
City parks are all across Minnesota. But a town in Murray County has one that’s gone off its rails.
Currie, Minnesota, is truly small-town America. The population hovers at just over 200. But on the northern outskirts, you’ll happen upon a place with plenty of bells and whistles: End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum.
“It’s like a little village from way back when. You have your church. You’ve got a school,” said visitor Larry Diedrich.
You’ve also got railroad relics, up and down the tracks.
“1901 was when the first line was put in here,” said Jake Halverson, site manager for End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum.
Halverson said Currie was once a thriving railroad town. In fact, it was the end of the line for steam engines heading west. If you wanted to go east, Currie was your gateway to the rest of the world. The first stop was Bigham Lake.
“From Bigham Lake they could go to Minneapolis, from Minneapolis to Chicago, from Chicago to New York,” said Halverson.
But by mid-century the last train had left the station. No sooner did that happen than teenagers from the local 4H club began to clean up the abandoned turntable.
The platform was used to turn 400,000-pound steam engines around when they hit the end of the line. Thanks to the 4Hers, it still works today.
The club also bought the train depot for $1 from the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad Company and moved it closer to the turntable.
“That is really the beginning of maybe bringing more attention to the history of the railroad here,” said Halverson.
It’s history that comes in all shapes and sizes, including a model railroad that’s a replica of a time that was.
“It was built to look like what Currie was 100 years ago,” said Halverson.
Much of what you see at the park and museum is original, including a 125-year-old water tower that was moved to the site from Walnut Grove.
The caboose nearby originally came from South Dakota. The locomotive once ran in Georgia.
The rail business may have left Currie, but the love for trains never did. It’s a chance to celebrate big history in a small town.
“Wherever there have been trains, there have been people who are fascinated by them,” said Halverson. “I think this is an opportunity for individuals to learn about not only this part of Minnesota but to know where this part of Minnesota fits in with the rest of the world.”
The End-O-Line Railroad Park and Museum is open from Wednesday through Sunday from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day.
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