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Midwest

Chef Yia Vang

How Chef Yia Vang is putting his own twist on Hmong cuisine

Culture

Yia Vang, who moved to the US from a Thai refugee camp as a kid, explains his family’s rites of passage, and why beets can be controversial.

Nunes, phone

How a community in Ohio is stepping up when deportations split families

Economics
Members of the Longhorns compete in a Friday night softball game in West Liberty, Iowa

‘Somebody else’s babies’ built Steve King’s Iowa district — literally

Culture
Somali Americans recently gathered at a banquet hall in Columbus, Ohio, to celebrate Somalia’s new president, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

Why some Somali Americans are cheering for their home country’s new president

Global Politics
Thu MacKenzie and Madison Bau are freshmen at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire.

Racist taunts tested their friendship, but this Clinton supporter and her Trump-backer pal are in it for the long haul

Conflict
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Tettegouche State Park in Minnesota

The Midcontinent Rift could have split North America apart a billion years ago. Why didn’t it?

Technology

The rift was poised to turn the upper Midwest into oceanfront real estate — until it stalled.

Suud Olat is a refugee advocate in St. Cloud, Minnesota

Despite discrimination and backlash, this Somali in St. Cloud says, ‘I love my state’

Conflict

“It’s a really, really scary moment for the Somali community,” says refugee advocate Suud Olat.

Strange weather and climate change

Environment

A meteorologist connects the dots between the recent floods, tornadoes, blizzards and climate change.

Refugee students Wichita East High School

Schools in Wichita learn to adapt to the needs of their refugee students

Education

The largest high school in Kansas, Wichita East, has welcomed 58 new refugee students in the past year and a half. Many grew up in refugee camps and have no formal education — perhaps haven’t ever learned to hold a pencil. The whole school system is learning to adapt.

A few men pray in an open room

What’s it like to be a Muslim voter in polite, largely Christian Wisconsin?

Global Politics

The politicians and staff are gone now that the state’s primary is over, but some residents are left to deal with animosity stirred this political season.

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