Minnesota
Minnesota musicians find love through cochlear implants
MINNEAPOLIS — It’s a story with a very unexpected ending, between a guitar player and a clarinet player who are hard of hearing.
A medical device brought the two musical strangers into harmony in more ways than one.
It’s a story that starts with a girl who loved music, yet couldn’t quite hear.
“It was difficult in school. I think it affected my learning, my self-esteem, but I didn’t want anybody to know I had hearing loss,” Marcia Norwick said.
But Norwick played on.
“I struggled with words, but not with music,” she said.
She wore hearing aids for years until she heard about cochlear implants. The electronic devices carry noise past the damaged part of the ear straight to the hearing or cochlear nerve.
Her results were so good, her audiologist asked her to convince someone else he needed an implant, too.
“She asked me if I would be interested in talking with her father-in-law and I said, ‘Certainly.’ So I gathered all my materials and it was all business,” Norwick said.
Mike Mullins was a music lover, too, and then his hearing hit a fever pitch, too.
“I turned to one of my brothers and I said, ‘The flute is off-key.’ And he listened a while longer and he said, ‘No, no she isn’t,’ and the longer I listened and continued to check, of course she was right where she should be,” Mullins said.
Afraid of hearing bad news, he put off getting help, relying on his wife to navigate life.
“She became my ears. She did my hearing for me,” Mullins said.
When he lost his wife, he lost his way.
“My sons and grandkids and then my daughter-in-law who is an audiologist and they knew there was a solution and so they pushed me,” he said.
He got implants and started taking classes with Norwick. They bonded over their hardware and their music.
“Not hearing causes many people not to be able to engage in the things that they love doing,” Mullins said. “I am doing the things I love doing and it’s the implant that has caused that to happen.”
Partners in implant education, they are now partners in life, hoping others will listen to their story.
“It’s OK to have your hearing checked and it’s OK to wear hearing aids and it’s OK to hear and to admit that you can’t hear,” Mullin said.
“The implant, it’s given you your life back,” Norwick said to Mullins. “It certainly was a win-win-win.”
Cochlear implants are an option only for people with severe hearing loss.
Minnesota
Minnesota investigators say child care centers captured in viral video were operating as expected
Minnesota
Game Recap: Kings 5, Wild 4 (S/O) | Minnesota Wild
Matt Boldy scored late in the third to tie it and ultimately send the game to overtime, helping the Wild (25-10-8) extend their point streak to six games (3-0-3). Brock Faber had a goal and an assist, Jake Middleton and Joel Eriksson Ek also scored, and Jesper Wallstedt made 34 saves.
It was the second game of a back-to-back for Minnesota, which is coming off a 5-2 win at the Anaheim Ducks on Friday. The Wild and Kings will play again in Los Angeles on Monday.
“It was far from perfect of a game from us,” Faber said. “I thought we could have played better. With that quick turnaround, we’ll take the point. Now we need two in the next.”
Kempe put the Kings up 1-0 at 6:08 of the first period, scoring on a wrist shot from close range off Anze Kopitar’s cross-slot pass from below the goal line.
Middleton tied it up 1-1 at 8:28, getting his first goal of the season in 36 games on a snap shot from the left circle set up by Mats Zuccarello.
“I think he thought I was Kirill (Kaprizov) in the slot there, so it was nice to get one,” Middleton joked. “I normally have a few goals before I take 35 games off from scoring, so this one was getting a little stressful but we got it out of the way.”
Perry gave Los Angeles a 2-1 lead at 16:57 of the second period when Byfield’s shot struck him in the wrist and redirected in for the power-play goal.
Eriksson Ek tied it 2-2 at 18:23 on the power play, taking Quinn Hughes’ stretch pass at the offensive blue line for a short breakaway, fending off defenseman Joel Edmundson and scoring on a wrist shot from the left circle.
Byfield put Los Angeles back in front 3-2 at 4:54 of the third period. He shot the puck caroming off the boards back into the crease, where Wallstedt lost it in his skates and it was eventually knocked in by a Wild stick during the ensuing scramble in front.
“Shouldn’t be, that was terrible,” Byfield joked when asked if he knew it was his goal. “No, it’s good. I think it’s two now that were liked that, so I’ll take them how they come.”
Minnesota
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on the defensive as fraud allegations mount after viral video uncovered Somali aid scheme
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz pushed back against the ever-growing fraud allegations levied against him in the disastrous aftermath of a viral video where an independent journalist cracked open a crucial part of the alleged Somali aid scheme.
A spokesperson for Walz, a Democrat who frequently provokes President Trump’s ire, addressed a bombshell video posted by conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley.
“The governor has worked for years to crack down on fraud and ask the state legislature for more authority to take aggressive action. He has strengthened oversight — including launching investigations into these specific facilities, one of which was already closed,” the spokesperson told Fox News.
The spokesperson added that Walz has “hired an outside firm to audit payments to high-risk programs, shut down the Housing Stabilization Services program entirely, announced a new statewide program integrity director, and supported criminal prosecutions.”
In the 43-minute video published on Friday, Shirley and a Minnesotan named David travel around Minneapolis and visit multiple childcare and learning centers allegedly owned by Somali immigrants.
Many were either shuttered entirely, despite signage indicating they were open, or helmed by staff who refused to participate in the video.
One of the buildings they visited displayed a misspelled sign reading “Quality Learing Center.” The ‘learning’ center is supposed to account for at least 99 children and funneled roughly $4 million in state funds, according to the video.
Shirley appeared on Fox News’ “The Big Weekend Show” on Sunday evening and boasted about his findings. He joked that the alleged scheme was “so obvious” that a “kindergartener could figure out there is fraud going on.”
“Fraud is fraud, and we work too hard simply just to be paying taxes and enabling fraud to be happening,” Shirley said.
“There better be change. People are demanding it. The investigation have been launched just from that video alone. So there better be change, like I said we work way too hard to be paying taxes and not knowing where our money’s going,” he added.
Many officials have echoed Shirley’s calls for change, with FBI Director Kash Patel even announcing that the agency surged extra personnel to investigate the resources doled out to Minnesota. He said this is one of the first steps in a wide-reaching effort to “dismantle large-scale fraud schemes exploiting federal programs.”
Federal investigators say half of the $18 billion granted to Minnesota since 2018 could have been stolen by fraudulent schemes — amounting to up to $9 billion in theft.
As of Saturday evening, 86 people have been charged in relation to these fraud scams, with 59 convicted so far.
Most of those accused of fraud come from Minnesota’s Somali community.
Shirley’s mega-viral video cracked 100 million views Sunday night.
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