MPR News with Angela Davis Minnesota Public Radio

The first iPhone came out in 2007, when this year’s graduating high school seniors were toddlers learning to speak. Today, almost all high school students (95 percent) have access to a smartphone, according to the Pew Research Center.

Scrolling through social media posts has become central to young people’s lives, but there’s also a growing conversation about the downsides. Constant connectivity is linked to an increase in teen mental health struggles, attention problems and slumps in academic achievement.

The issue got more attention at the state Capitol this year too. Lawmakers passed legislation that requires schools to have cellphone policies in place by next spring.

MPR News correspondent and guest host Catharine Richert talks about how lawmakers, parents, educators and teens themselves are trying to better manage screen time for their wellbeing. 

Guests:  

Rep. Sandra Feist, DFL-New Brighton was co-sponsor of the bill in the Minnesota House that was passed into law this spring requiring Minnesota public schools to adopt a cell phone policy by March 15, 2025.  

Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove was co-sponsor of the bill in the Minnesota House that was passed into law this spring requiring Minnesota public schools to adopt a cell phone policy by March 15, 2025. 

Katherine Myers is the executive director and co-founder of LiveMore ScreenLess, a Minnesota nonprofit organization that works with families, communities and schools to reduce screen time and promote digital wellbeing. She retired in 2018 after teaching English for 25 years in public and private schools.  

Catalina Martinez is a junior at Two Rivers High School in Mendota Heights and a member of the school’s Digital Wellbeing Club. 

LaRae Dodson is a senior at Two Rivers High School in Mendota Heights and a member of the school’s Digital Wellbeing Club.  

Would you know the signs of a stroke if you saw them in a friend or a family member? 

May is National Stroke Awareness Month. Nearly 800,000 people have a stroke each year in the United States. 

MPR News host Angela Davis hears from a neurologist about the causes, signs and symptoms of a stroke.  


She also hears from a survivor about her road to recovery after her life-changing stroke — and why she teamed up with a colleague to share her experience with the medical community, resulting in a study published in the medical journal Rehabilitation Nursing: “The Lived Experience of Serious Stroke Survival.” 

Guests:   


 Dr. “Vic” Vikram Jadhav is an interventional neurologist at Essentia Health in Duluth. 

Roberta Hunt, Ph.D., is a former professor of nursing at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. She survived a serious stroke in May 2020, and together with her former colleague published an academic case study on her survivorship experience.

Barbara Champlin, Ph.D., is a former professor of nursing at St. Catherine University and the University of Minnesota and Roberta’s former colleague. She worked with Roberta to publish an academic case study on Roberta’s survivorship experience.

Jackie Smith is Roberta’s daughter.




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We’re almost through the month of May and the peonies are getting ready to bloom.  

Maybe you’re wondering if it’s too late to plant flowers or get some seeds in the vegetable plot. Well, it’s not!

MPR News host Angela Davis talked with two horticultural experts about how to make our yards and gardens flourish as we head into summer.  

They talked about all the things you can still plant this season, ways to make your yard more friendly to the birds and the bees and how to adapt to the longer and warmer growing seasons brought by climate change.  

Guests:  


Laura Irish-Hanson is a horticulture educator with the University of Minnesota Extension. She works primarily out of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska.





Catherine Grant is a horticulturalist and manages the greenhouses, medicinal garden and pollinator habitat for the Department of Biology at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul.

We hear a lot about students who are not engaged in school.  

But what happens when schools begin to do things differently to give students more control over their education — in everything from hiring staff to student discipline policies?  

MPR News host Angela Davis shares a conversation she moderated this spring with high school students, principals and teachers from three public schools who are finding new ways to support student leaders. 

A technical high school on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota is helping students explore careers and Indigenous identity. A small public charter high school in Brooklyn Park involves students resolving discipline issues.  And, at a small-town school in southeastern Minnesota high school students help out in the elementary school classrooms.  

The panel discussion was held May 7 in Minneapolis at an annual education reform gathering called “Student-Centered Learning for Equity” convened by the Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization Education Evolving and supported by the Bush Foundation.  

Guests:   

Cari-Ana Garcia Luna is the director and superintendent of SAGE Academy, a public charter high school in Brooklyn Park.  

Skye Leng is a ninth grader at SAGE Academy.   

Marlin Kingi is a social studies teacher and student council advisor at Lakota Tech High School, a public high school in Oglala Lakota County on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  

Marcel Swallow is a sophomore at Lakota Tech High School.  

Luke Kjelland is principal of Spring Grove Public Schools, a public kindergarten through 12th grade school in Spring Grove in southeast Minnesota.  

Ellie Halverson is a senior at Spring Grove Public Schools.

Four years ago this week, a movement to defund and abolish the Minneapolis Police Department ignited across the city and the world.  

George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man and St. Louis Park resident, was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis. 

In those four years since his murder, everything — and nothing — has changed. 

The Minneapolis Police Department was not defunded. And the city is still struggling to come to terms with what safety and accountability look like in the aftermath.

A new book traces how Minneapolis arrived at the brink of police abolition, and why true reform is so hard to come by.  

It’s called “The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence and the Politics of Policing in America.”

MPR News host Angela Davis talked with the book’s author, sociologist Michelle Phelps.

Guest: 


Michelle Phelps is an associate professor in the department of sociology at the University of Minnesota and the author of the new book, “The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence, and the Politics of Policing in America.”

The weather is warmer, and many are itching to enjoy the sunshine.  

In Minnesota, there’s a recreational team for just about every sport you can imagine — and you most likely don’t need to travel far to find them.

MPR News guest host Dan Kraker and his guests are talked about ways to get active and play the sports you love as an adult, whether you’re a total beginner or an all-out fanatic.