An Asian elephant named Mary, who lives at the Berlin Zoo learned how to wash herself clean using a hose as a flexible shower head.

French artist JR gave a wonderfully detailed tour of the L’Observatoire Suite he designed for the Venice Simplon Orient Express.

A fearless cat named Callie who was found as a kitten by her human Sam Wallace loves to sit on their back while skateboarding.

Comedian Stef Dag shared her amazement when she found out that the TV show she was watching was actually filmed inside her apartment.

Billary Squintin used AI to vividly re-create scenes from Mad Max: Fury Road with Muppets in place of the actual actors.

Filmmaker Daren Jannace compiled and animated 10,946 doodles that he made on sticky notes, starting with 30 sticky notes per day in 2016.

Fire crews are battling small wildfires across the Northeast U.S. A blaze in New York and New Jersey killed a parks employee over the weekend and postponed Veterans Day plans. A quarter-inch of rain fell overnight from Sunday into Monday, giving a slight respite to firefighters. 

General Manager Clare Duwelius is headed to Unrivaled, the new women’s three-on-three basketball league started by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart. And associate head coach Katie Smith is headed to Ohio State, where she’ll be the assistant coach for the women’s basketball team.

John Robinson, the veteran football coach who enjoyed many years of success at the University of Southern California and with the Los Angeles Rams, has died. He was 89.

The Minnesota Twins will promote Derek Falvey to president of baseball and business operations and Jeremy Zoll to general manager as part of a front office succession plan initiated by current club president Dave St. Peter’s move into a strategic adviser role. 

Investigators say they believe a Wisconsin kayaker missing since mid-August faked his death before fleeing to Europe. 

A Minnesota man who served nearly 20 years in prison before his murder conviction was vacated last year has filed a claim for nearly $2 million from the state.

Denzel Washington is retiring after his next few projects, he said in a recent interview.

Robert Williams and Jerami Grant each scored 19 points to lead the Portland Trail Blazers to a 122-108 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night. Naz Reid led Minnesota with 28 points in the loss while star guard Anthony Edwards pitched in 26 points.

Donald Trump has been declared the winner of the 2024 presidential election. Tell us what questions you have about how a second Trump presidency might affect Minnesota.

After a tension filled day following an incident Sunday near the Mankato Islamic Center initially feared as an arson attack, the police have a more benign explanation, but anger remains.

Edgar Barrientos-Quintana was wrongly convicted in 2009 and sentenced to life in prison without parole for the 2008 murder of Jesse Mickelson in Minneapolis. 

Up until Tuesday evening, 50 Cent held the distinction of throwing the worst first pitch in the history of all ceremony.

Here are the stories, topics, and guests you'll hear today on MPR News.

Collins vowed to not write a goodbye post. We're not sure if's staying true to that, so here comes old friend Tom Weber "to sing a little on behalf of a friend who’s made immeasurable contributions to MPR and Minnesota."

Being a member of the MPR News staff for a little over a year, and located outside of the St. Paul office, I’ve only had the privilege to observe the NewsCut magic as many readers have, with interactions through emails and reading Bob Collins’ words. But the one time I got to meet Bob in…

The past couple of weeks have been weird. Daily life changed gradually, then all at once. We now find ourselves at home practicing our best “social distancing” protocols. Incredible technology allows us to stay connected, and that’s fantastic. But it’s ok to put the phone down. It’s ok to turn down the news from time to time, and take a long walk outside in nature. This week, I took my own advice. Amidst the simple beauty of nature, I draw one deep breath… and then another. In the forest, I glimpse a furtive movement - beyond the shoulder of the rural, dirt road. One handsome squirrel sits perched on a fallen log, slowly twirling a hemlock cone in its forepaws. In the warm morning sunlight, he yawns…unimpressed with my presence. In his narrow economy, it’s spring and the kitchen larder of conifer cone seeds is running low. Above me, a March wind coaxes a flock of bluebirds to an open, sodden pasture. Springtime arrives this year, just as the bluebirds do– hopeful, tentative, uncertain.

Standing dead trees (often called snags) are common in our forests, and it’s hard to overstate just how vital a role they play in a healthy ecosystem. These gray ghosts provide food and shelter for a whole heap of forest critters; a total of 43 species of birds and mammals are specially adapted to nesting or denning inside tree cavities. But before a dead tree becomes a high-rise condo for a long list of species, it first undergoes a remarkable transformation. In fact, snags undergo a series of changes, from the time they begin to die until they finally collapse, and each stage of decay has particular value to a whole host of different animals with unique needs. First things first: decaying wood is perfect for fungi -- molds, mildews and mushrooms -- decomposers that soften wood enough for insects to start to gnaw their way in. Next, termites, beetles, and ants all begin to chew apart and break down the cellulose and lignin that gives wood its normally rigid structure. And once you

By the time the cold weather months hit us, three of New Hampshire’s eight species of bats have already migrated to warmer places in the South and Mid-Atlantic regions. The bat that DO overwinter in New Hampshire have relocated out of their preferred summer roosts in trees (and Dave's chimney), and into winter hibernacula like caves, mine shafts, and abandoned military bunkers where the microclimate is just right. These cozy shelters provide stable temperatures, higher humidity, and protection from predators. But they also provide the perfect climate for Psedogymnoascus destructans, the fungus that causes White-nose Syndrome in bats. According to Sandi Houghton, a wildlife biologist for New Hampshire Fish and Game / Non-game and Endangered Wildlife Division, as many as 99% of New Hampshire’s little brown bats were wiped out because of this fungus-- found in the very places bats take winter refuge. In fact most of what’s left of the little brown bat population in New Hampshire may be

This time of year, you're likely to see cars and pickup trucks heading home on the highways with fresh-cut Christmas trees tied to roofs or in the truck beds. Fraser firs, Korean firs, Balsam firs, and Spruce (ouch!)... So today on Something Wild we take a look at Christmas tree farms, and the important habitats they provide for New Hampshire wildlife. You might be heartened to know that tree farms are a unique land use, and serve as early successional habitat, one that is neither residential neighborhood, cropland, nor deep forest. It's a landscape that was far more common a century ago, before small family farms began to vanish. Early successional habitats are an incubator: warm, sunny, scrubby zones with a variety of foods...like grasses, weeds and sometimes fruit-bearing shrubs or vines…raspberries, blackberries and grapes. Anything sun-loving, including fast-growing tree seedling and saplings. Tree farms provide ample food and shelter to a wide variety of disturbance-adapted

February in New Hampshire can be a bitter time, weather-wise. In some places, layers of ice and snow still weigh heavily on conifer limbs, and on the souls of even the heartiest of New Englanders. But at last, the days are noticeably longer. So take heart winter-weary friends. The first pulses of springtime arrive in the smallest of signs.

About this time one year ago life in New Hampshire and across the world changed drastically. In this week's Something Wild, we re-visit musings from Dave Anderson in how to find solace in nature-- even during the most stressful of times.

We know…we’ve been remiss, and it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room. Something Wild, as you know, is a chance to take a closer look at the wildlife, ecosystems and marvelous phenomena you can find in and around New Hampshire. But over the years there is one species in New Hampshire that we haven’t spent much time examining. A species, I think that has been conspicuous in its absence. Humans.

DFL Rep. Brad Tabke leads GOP challenger Aaron Paul by just 14 votes out of about 22,000 cast. That's one more vote than his lead was earlier in the week.

Republican Kelly Ayotte's victory in New Hampshire will bring the total number of women holding governor’s offices to 13 — surpassing the previous high of 12 set in 2023.

President-elect Donald Trump won the election by flipping Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin after President Biden won them in 2020. Looking at how Democratic counties voted explains how he did it.

Since the start of the #MeToo movement, many accused abusers have filed defamation charges against their accusers in retaliation, advocates say. Law professor Victoria Burke wants to change that.

Black and Latino voters moved toward Republican Donald Trump in this year's presidential election, and some of the biggest shifts were among men under age 45, and that helped expand his margin over Democrat Kamala Harris. 

Homan was the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement from January 2017 to June 2018, where he was a key architect of the Trump administration's controversial family separation policy.

Donald Trump is naming longtime adviser Stephen Miller, an immigration hard-liner, to be the deputy chief of policy in his new administration. The announcement was first reported by CNN on Monday.

Before he comes back for good on Inauguration Day, Donald Trump will return to the White House briefly at the invitation of President Joe Biden.

The election is over, but rumors, lies and misinformation are here to stay. MPR News host Angela Davis talks about the role misinformation played in the election and how we can protect ourselves from it.

The president-elect recently affirmed that he supports legalizing marijuana for recreational use. His stance means cannabis could be a rare issue on which Trump carries a Biden policy forward.

If confirmed, the Florida senator would become the first Latino to ever serve as the nation's top diplomat.

President-elect Donald Trump has promised to reverse the Biden administration’s actions blocking copper-nickel mining near the Boundary Waters. But there is a lot that would need to happen before any mine could open.

President-elect Donald Trump made notable inroads with Latino voters this year, particularly among young men. One voter’s family history provides a window into Trump’s appeal.

President-elect Donald Trump named Stephen Miller his deputy chief of staff and Tom Homan as his “border czar,” appointing a battle-tested duo to design and direct immigration policy from the White House.

The new Louisiana requirement that the Ten Commandments be displayed in every public classroom by Jan. 1 was temporarily blocked Tuesday. The judge said the law is "unconstitutional on its face."

The second-term DFLer says he’ll challenge Trump if Republicans push politics that contradict Minnesota laws.

Hegseth, 44, is a co-host of Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends Weekend” and unsuccessfully ran for the Senate in Minnesota in 2012.

It's auction day for Alex Jones' Infowars. The Infowars studio and most other assets of the conspiracy theorist's company are expected to be sold off Wednesday. 

Donald Trump has selected South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security. It's one of the biggest government agencies that will be integral to his vow to secure the border and carry out a massive deportation operation.

Last summer, many trails were overcrowded as outdoor enthusiasts and newcomers took advantage of the Granite State’s natural resources. In a conversation recorded before Memorial Day this year, we discussed what lessons we take from that experience and what to expect this summer. We discussed how we can balance sharing the trails with all those who want to use them, and also promote stewardship of our natural resources.

Robert Frost famously said “good fences make good neighbors” and if you’re out for a walk in the woods in New Hampshire, you will likely find a stone wall. We talk with Kevin Gardner, a master stone builder and author of several books on the subject, about the on-going appeal of stone walls and how to build them. He explains the philosophy behind the craft of placing stone and examines the mythology of the stone wall and its place in the New England imagination.