Minnesota
Ones to watch: These Minnesota men are running for Liberia at the Paris Olympics
Last week, Jabez Reeves, a sprinter at Minnesota State University – Mankato, stretched by himself on the end of the school’s track. He then ran three full-speed sprints, as his coach at Mankato watched on.
Three days later, Reeves was on a flight to Paris, where he’ll compete on the Liberian Olympic men’s 4×100 meter relay team.
While the team members are clearly tied to Liberia, they also share a strong connection to Minnesota.
“I have a lot of family toward the Coon Rapids, Brooklyn Park area. So for them, just having people that are from Minnesota, putting on and trying to take our name internationally is pretty huge for them,” Reeves said. “It’s just more like an honor thing, just being grateful that I’m allowed to be in this position now.”
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Reeves grew up in Woodbridge, Va., but transferred to MSU when another Liberian sprinter — Emmanuel Matadi — recruited him.
Matadi is also the veteran of the Liberian relay team. He ran at Johnson High School in St. Paul. Akeem Sirleaf was a sprinter at North St. Paul High School and now runs for North Carolina A&T State University. And then there’s Joseph Fahnbulleh, who ran for Hopkins High School in Minnetonka and then raced for the University of Florida.
Jabez Reeves in Mankato before heading to Paris for the Olympic Games.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News
All three of them have state high school championships under their belts.
“When we all talk, we’re all like ‘Yeah, I’m from this part of Minnesota, I’m gonna do what I gotta do to represent this part of Minnesota,’” Sirleaf said. “But when we all come together on that relay, none of that matters. We just focus on the goal, which is to make it to the final and get a medal.”
While the team has a strong Minnesota connection, they rarely get to run together. Getting timing down and baton passes right will be something they’ll work on in Paris before their first race.
But at Olympic Qualifiers in May in the Bahamas, the team looked like a well-oiled machine.
The top two teams in each heat get automatic bids. Liberia was in fifth place as the last leg of the race came, but Fahnbulleh exploded in the anchor leg, pulling his team into second, edging out Switzerland by a hundredth of a second.
The ecstatic team ran to each other on the track, hugging each other.
“That whole relay was just amazing,” Sirleaf said. “I feel like it was a steppingstone for us to put our name out there to the world, to let the world know that, yeah, we’re a small country, but we’re coming.”
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Sirleaf is nursing an injury and will be an alternate in Paris. John Sherman, a 19-year-old from Middle Tennessee State University, will run in place of Sirleaf.
As the Olympic ceremonies open Friday in Paris, the team will come out waving the Liberian flag, a celebration both of their journey and Liberia’s Independence Day, which is the same day.
In 1991, the U.S., and specifically Minnesota, began resettling refugees from Liberia, who were fleeing civil war. Today, Minnesota is home to one of the largest Liberian populations in the U.S., estimated at around 30,000 people.
“The Minnesota connection is really strong,” said Momodou N’Jie, Joseph Fahnbulleh’s cousin and manager. N’Jie grew up with him in the Hopkins area. He says the community is excited to watch the Liberian-Minnesotans compete in Paris.
“There’s a lot of different watch parties, not only obviously here in Minnesota … Rhode Island’s another big place and obviously in Liberia,” he said. “I think it’ll be very cool to see all these different watch parties.”
As of Thursday, the exact location of those watch parties hasn’t been announced.
Many families will also be traveling to Paris, which wasn’t a possibility at the Tokyo Olympics because of COVID-19 travel restrictions.
“I feel like it’s big, because my mom is going to be there. Because [Liberia’s] her native country. So for her seeing me there in Liberia gear, and us on the stage and being the flag bearer and things like that. It’s kind of just huge for her.”
He said racing for the team, representing the country his mother grew up in, will be an honor.
“I grew up around so many Liberians that it almost feels like a duty,” Reeves said. “I kind of felt like I had to run for Liberia just because of where I’m from. And it’s kind of like my birthright, kind of like something that I feel had to be done.”
Jabez Reeves warms up at Myer’s Field House in Mankato.
Kerem Yücel | MPR News
He said it’s not only his family that’s excited, but the broader Liberian-American community.
“The very first time we qualified, I had almost 1,000 messages, just about ‘Congratulations. We’re so proud of you,’” he said. “I’ve had a couple of run-ins at the airport, like MSP, where people are like, ‘Oh, you’re the Liberian guy!’ It’s super cool to see people happy and excited that we’re doing something for not just ourselves, but for them as well.”
The first race for the relay team will be on Thursday Aug. 8. Fahnbulleh will run the first round of the 200 meters on Aug. 5. Matadi will run the first round of the 100 meters on Aug. 3.
Minnesota
Wildfire smoke from Canada and Minnesota pushes further into US, engulfing DC in eerie haze
NEW YORK (AP) — Millions of people in the Great Lakes, Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states muddled through another day of unhealthy air from uncontrolled wildfires on Friday, as smoke enveloped the nation’s capital in a gloomy, eerie haze.
Air quality warnings were expected to remain in effect through Saturday across a wide swath of the U.S., but there’s potential for temporary relief with rains and storms forecast over a chunk of the affected region over the weekend.
The smoky conditions won’t be gone anytime soon, though, as fires burn unchecked across a remote region of Canada, cautioned Bob Oravec, a lead forecaster at the National Weather Service based in Maryland. Wildfires in a wilderness area in Minnesota are also contributing to the smoke.
“The source of the smoke is going to continue on for certainly a week, probably,” he said. “So in some form, there’s going to be smoke that gets transported from the fires downstream, and it’s just going to depend upon which way the wind’s blowing as to where the smoke is going to affect the most.”
On Friday, communities in Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois closest to the Canadian border and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota again registered some of the worst air quality in the world, according to IQAir, an air quality monitoring website.
Not far behind them was Washington, D.C., where the thick smoke created eerie scenes. The Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and other national landmarks could be seen enveloped in a thick, orange-hued haze in the morning.
“Wow that Canadian smoke haze is no joke,” Stewart Verdery, a former assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, wrote on X as he shared a panorama of D.C. at sunrise. “Almost nothing visible – no sun, no monuments, no Reagan Airport.”
Air in and around Washington was expected to go from bad to worse as the day progressed, reaching “very unhealthy” and potentially “hazardous” levels on the air quality index, regional officials said.
People, particularly those with heart or lung disease, older adults and children, were urged to limit or avoid going outside as much as possible until air quality improved.
There was also concern in the New York City area about how the foul air might impact the World Cup final match between soccer powerhouses Spain and Argentina at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey on Sunday.
Oravec said winds will continue pushing the wildfire smoke east in the U.S., though conditions should be better on game day Sunday than on Saturday.
Just a day earlier, a thick haze tinged with orange and yellow darkened skies across several states and partly obscured Manhattan’s skyline.
Officials from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and other Northeast states distributed free K95 face masks, canceled outdoor programming and opened libraries and other public buildings as cooling centers where people could get a respite from the sooty air.
As Friday progressed, air quality measures improved from “unhealthy” to “moderate” in some places in and around New York City.
A strong sun broke through a thin veil of smoke, and large chunks of clear blue sky were visible across much of the region by Friday afternoon.
Saturday brings a high chance of thunderstorms across much of the Northeast and mid-Atlantic, which will help dampen the bad air.
How long the reprieve lasts depends on what happens hundreds of miles north, as some 100 wildfires burn without end in sight, largely in the Ontario area in Canada. In the U.S., officials have closed the Boundary Waters while battling multiple fires.
Long-term exposure to smoky conditions can complicate existing health problems and lead to chronic and deadly issues, including respiratory illness, cardiovascular and neurological diseases and premature death.
See how the bald eagle’s story shows its enduring symbolism
As the U.S. celebrates 250 years, the bald eagle endures as North America’s native sea eagle and national bird.
The common loon, Minnesota’s state bird, is more closely related to a penguin than a duck.
Despite loons predominantly living in the northern hemisphere and penguins mostly living in the southern hemisphere, researchers consider them to be genetic cousins. Taxonomic analyses placed them in an evolutionary cluster tracing back 40 million to 50 million years ago, along with herons and pelicans.
While loons and ducks share habitat on Minnesota lakes, they aren’t close relatives. Ducks are closer cousins to geese and swans.
After sharing a common ancestor, penguins and loons developed distinct characteristics. Loons can fly, but struggle to move on land; penguins can’t fly, but waddle on land. Penguins use flipper-like wings to swim; loons use webbed feet for underwater propulsion.
They have some similar features, however, including dense bones to help dive underwater and their tuxedo coloring.
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Fires in the past burned more frequently in western Canada, but recent years have seen that trend migrate eastward, with large fires now burning in Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic provinces, Prof Chasmer said, leading to more noticeable smoke in densely populated cities like Toronto and New York.
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